Various diseases, physical trauma, and birth defects can result in the destruction or impaired functionality of rod and cone cells in the retina, which are the primary mechanism for converting incident light into electro-chemical signals that can be interpreted as sight by the brain. Generally, loss of this functionality can not be mitigated by conventional surgical or pharmacological methods.
A prosthetic retinal device could be used to restore visual perception to a person suffering from damage to the retina due to birth defects, physical trauma, and/or disease such as retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration, and the like. Some birth defects, trauma, or disease can cause destruction of the rods and cones in the retina, but leave other retina cells such as ganglion cells largely intact. Consequently, the application of an electrical signal to these other cells in the retina can still enable the perception of light even if the rod and/or cone cells are impaired or absent. In the retina, ganglion cells translate electrical stimulation into electrochemical messages which are subsequently communicated to the visual cortex of the brain through the optic nerve.
However, at least because of operational constraints such as intra-ocular temperature and/or pressure, physical size, physical contact with the retina, and power supply limitations, the resolution of electrical signals provided by a prosthetic retinal device may be limited. Thus, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.